Star Trek: Of Gods and Men – 2007
I am a huge Star Trek buff but I never heard about Of Gods and Men until just a few days ago. To be frank, it’s nothing to be proud of to have heard about. It basically sucks! As far as I understand it’s a semi-fan fiction that isn’t recognized in the Star Trek canon. And I’m not sure if the characters were actually allowed to be used either. But I think the attempt is forgiven by the Star Trek community. I think the fans will be very upset with the copywrite holders if they were to drag it into a legal battle. Star Trek is kind of a holy Cow among the die-hard fans and you just can’t restrict the use of it flippantly.
Looking at the rating on IMDb I’m actually shocked about the high rating. I mean, it’s not skyrocketed through the roof or anything, but it has a way better rating than I would ever give to something like this. And I am a huge Star Trek Fan after all. It’s badly written, poorly acted, and a more or less totally incomprehensible storyline. What is interesting, and a saving grace for this attempt is that it features a few faces known from the Star Trek universe. They are not always playing their usual role but it seems that they all jump on this opportunity to expand the Star Trek Universe.
Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig
We have, of course, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Koenig. They more or less play the roles that are associated with them In this take they are now captains of their own starships though. Only natural since it’s been a while since the original series. They ought to have raised a few ranks during that time. Pawel (Checkow) is even up for promotion to Admiral at this point. But if you think you’ll see them for long in these characters, you’ll be disappointed. This movie explores a different timeline for most of it’s duration. A timeline that has been altered by another “old” character. Do you remember Charlie Evans from TOS Charlie X? Do you remember the Guardian of Forever? Combine those two and you have your altered timeline.
He’s back and he still hates Jim Kirk. Of course, there’s no point in hating him anymore since he died in the Star Trek story Generations, the cross-over movie between TOS and TNG. So, what happens is that the characters of Uhura and Checkov become someone else. It kind of makes sense when you get to the end of the story but on the way there it’s just …wrong!
Familiar Faces
Other actors appearing in this adventure is Garret Wang, who played Harry Kim in Voyager. Here he is someone else. It doesn’t suit him at all. We have Alan Ruch who reprises his role as Captain Harriman from Star Trek Generations and Tim Russ as Tuvok. I’m sure there are more people with Star Trek connections in there. Tim Russ also directed and is credited with writing the story. There are other names credited for writing as well but I’m not going into that. Oh, and Grace Lee Whitney makes a small appearance as Janice Rand.
To be honest, it was a pain to sit through this. It has nothing the original Star Trek had, nor anything from the later series. It’s fun to have seen just on the sole premise that it’s Star Trek but I firmly believe that this should never have been made. Or at least, they should have hired proper writers and a director to instruct the actor better. Star Trek Of Gods and Men is a disaster…
